The Flight Plan <3

I woke up this morning feeling more like myself than I have for a week.

The viral thing plaguing me has vanished and hallelujah! It’s good to feel good again!

I am happily getting ready for work and wanted to drop a quick note.

Travel by air is an adventure these days. Delays and cancelations seem to be the norm instead of the exception and our flight last Saturday followed the trend.

We were delighted to see our plane was on time when we arrived to the first leg as we had a comfortable window to make our connecting flight in Dallas.

But as we all buckled into our seats and waited to back out of the gate, that didn’t happen.

Passengers were starting to suspect something was up when the pilot came on and began to explain the situation.

It was a winding tale of woe and troubles for our flight that rambled from one bad scenario to the next.

You know me, I always find humor in life situations and I finally had to grab my notebook out and ask Russ to help me remember the details as I knew I was getting a good application lesson for us all.

Probably first lesson would be, if you are going to be a pilot speaking over a microphone, you may want to attempt a more positive angle as you address a plane full of people who are relying on you with their lives – but I will leave that for another day.

Basically, he started off by telling us that due to bad weather we were being rerouted through the northern part of Oklahoma, so he thought he should have the fuel levels checked to make sure we had enough for the detour.

I will pause here to say that I would assume having enough fuel to allow for any kind of extra flight time is a good idea, but I’m not a pilot so…

Next he told us that we should expect a lot of turbulence, though he sure hoped it wasn’t as bad as yesterday’s flight because that had been terrible.

Yes.

He used the word “terrible.”

He also shared with us that the weather in Dallas wasn’t looking very good at all.

And sure enough, we were low on fuel so we were going to have to wait for someone to come and fill ‘er up…and he wasn’t really sure how long that would take.

Then he wrapped up the whole depressing announcement up with this statement…

“other than that, thank you for flying with us and we hope you have a nice flight.”

mmmmm……

Not likely, my friend…but thanks for the good thought.

Russ and I were laughing so hard, he even suggested he might have a guest blog in him for this one.

While I could see the humor in the whole event, I also saw myself.

And that isn’t so funny.

So often I focus on the negative of a situation.

Granted I am usually being realistic and proactive to be ready for what could potentially go wrong, but still…is it wise to focus on all the negatives in a way that is resigned to seeing no hope for a good outcome.

What a great example of how not to be.

We don’t have to be blindly optimistic and fake about the realities of life, but a shift in the way we deliver the news can make or break the moods of those around us.

My words and my attitude are influential over those who I am responsible for and I want to guard them better.

Something to think about and work on…but for right now, I need to prepare the cabin for take off…